Hi Mumsnet
I'm writing this as a gay man who wants to help mums understand what it's like to go through puberty as a boy.
I was bought up in a female household in the early 80's by my mam and 2 elder sisters. My dad left home just as I started to need him at 11 years old.
When my sisters started puberty I found their knickers soaking in a bucket of water. Innocently I asked what was happening and was told that they were going through 'the change' and as such they needed my cooperation and understanding. I was ordered to give them time to adjust and accept that they would be 'argumentative'.
When it became my time to go through 'the change' things were different. I received no consideration. I got no sympathy, no empathy. I did however get loads of 'ERRR BOYS ARE AWFUL'
Please forgive, me for this analogy but just as much as girls bleed so do boys ejaculate. As scary as it is for girls to become women so it is for boys to become men, yet we don't receive the same compassion and empathy.
Mums.
As an eleven year old boy I went to bed one night. I was no different to what I had been all of my life.
I woke up the next day, after having horrendous nightmares,and woe betide, I was a man!
It fu*NG terrified me.
Overnight my willie had gone from being a shrinkadink to a man's cock. I was fucking terrified. I tried to figure out how I could ask my mam what had happened, then I put on my trousers and was gobsmacked to discover I'd also grown 2 inches overnight.
Ladies. As becoming a woman is scary so is becoming a man.
What has happened in the past with male domination is horrendous. However making the men of tomorrow suffer for the sins of their fathers and grandfathers is not right. In order to advance as a society we desperately need to learn to progress together.
Boys struggle with puberty just like girls do. Just because the men of the past have steadfastly refused to talk about their woes doesn't mean to say that they did not feel the pain.
Separately we are weak.
Together we can conquer.
X